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The exact amount of non-elective business necessary for a Parliament which is to elect the executive cannot, of course, be formally stated. There are no numbers and no statistics in the theory of constitutions. All we can say is, that a Parliament with little business, which is to be as efficient as a Parliament with much business, must be in all other respects much better.
As the judiciary under the English system has no voice in the general policy of the state, the tenure of judges during good behavior carries with it no power to thwart the popular will. The provision in the Constitution of the United States for the life tenure of a non-elective judiciary serves, however, an altogether different purpose.
It is the vague apprehension of such dangers, quite as much as the merely selfish fears of the privileged classes, which preserves in Europe the relics of past systems of non-elective government, the House of Lords, for instance, in England, and the Monarchy in Italy or Norway.
Does anybody really believe great nations are so incapable of managing their own affairs for themselves through their duly-elected representatives that they are compelled to check their own boyish ardour by means of the acts of an irresponsible and non-elective body? Does anybody believe that the House of Commons works too fast, and gets through its public business too hurriedly?
If the newspapers of the country are really concerned about corrupter practices than their own and willing to bring our courts up to the English standard there is something better than exposure which fatigues. Let the newspapers set about creating a public opinion favorable to non-elective judges, well paid, powerful to command respect and holding office for life or good behavior.
They know they are not ignorant, except as everyone is ignorant who lacks contact with new customs and changes in world progress. They are fully cognizant of their lack of that knowledge which "comes only out of a book." But whatever their educational shortcomings, no one has ever laid at their door the charge of stupidity. Raised in nature's school they are masters of its non-elective course.
The rejection of the Budget by the House of Lords would not merely be a question of stopping a money Bill or of knocking out a few taxes obnoxious to particular classes; the rejection of the Budget by the House of Lords would mean the claim of the House of Lords that is, the claim of a non-elective and unrepresentative Chamber to make and to unmake Governments; and a recognition of that claim by the country would unquestionably mean that the House of Lords would become the main source and origin of all political power under the Crown.
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